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William Klein: Rome (Roma): The City and Its People (First French Edition) [PRESENTATION COPY: SIGNED, INSCRIBED & DATED in 1959, the Year of Publication]

Publisher: Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1959
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine / Near Fine
Item #: 112090

$6,950.00

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Specifics

First French edition, first printing. Presentation copy, inscribed with black ink: "à Robert, ROME SWEET ROME," signed by William Klein and dated "Rome 1959" on the table of contents page by Klein. Hardcover. Black cloth-covered boards with title stamped in white on spine, with photographically illustrated dust jacket. Photographs and text (in French, with epigraphs in Italian) by William Klein. Includes notes on the plates. 192 pp., with numerous black-and-white photogravure plates richly printed in France. 11-1/8 x 8-7/8 inches. [Cited in Andrew Roth, ed., The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century. (New York: PPP Editions in association with Roth Horowitz LLC, 2001), Michel and Michèle Auer, Collection M. + M. Auer - une histoire de la photographie. (Hermance, Switzerland: Éditions M+M, 2003), in Andrew Roth, ed., The Open Book. (Göteborg, Sweden: Hasselblad Center in association with Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, Germany, 2004), and in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, Volume I. (London and New York: Phaidon, 2004).]

Condition

Near Fine (light surface marks to boards, else Fine) in Near Fine dust jacket (numerous 1/8 to 1/2-inch closed tears and chips at top and bottom edges of jacket, repaired with tape and colored ink, and creasing to the upper corner of front jacket flap).

Description

Divided into five sections (Roman Citizens, The Street, the Eternal City, Youth, and the Catholic World), each demonstrative of Klein's keen eye for expression, gesture, juxtaposition, movement, mass, and time, Klein's Rome is a collective and definitive portrait of a living, yet ancient city. This is William Klein's second book, and one of his five signature 'city books,' which also include: New York (1956); Tokyo (1964); Moscow (1964) and Torino '90 (1990).